Everyone’s a critic, but as A.O. Scott— longtime movie reviewer for the New York Times and now critic at large for that newspaper’s book review section—has often pointed out, that’s not a bad thing. Critical thinking can and should inform almost every aspect of artistic creation, of civil action and of our interpersonal lives.

What makes for great criticism? And why do some critics miss the mark? Is criticism itself an art? Drawing on his three decades of reviewing film and books, Scott, in conversation with Alicia Anstead, will discuss these and other questions, describing the new challenges facing professional critics in the Internet Age, and why he made the leap from movie reviewing to writing about the current literary scene.

Free event

A.O. Scott is critic at large at the New York Times Book Review, where he writes essays about literature, culture and politics. Before that, he spent 23 years as a film critic for the Times, during which time he reviewed almost 3,000 movies and saw thousands more. He is the author of Better Living Through Criticism: How to Think About Art, Pleasure, Beauty and Truth, and teaches at Wesleyan University. 

Alicia Anstead is a writer, editor, producer and educator. She is the director for programming at the Office for the Arts at Harvard, where she also teaches narrative journalism.